Mister Scribbles

It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. A sickly light, like yellow tinfoil, was slanting over the high walls into the jail yard. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two. One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting moustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the moustache of a comic man on the films. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain th...

 Never volunteer at a Billy show.  Never.   https://www.instagram.com/sdavis.howdy/  

26 February 1805.    Napoleon was slightly above average height for Frenchmen in his day, about 5' 6" - 7".  No one in Bonaparte's lifetime described him as short.  It was the English cartoonist James Gillray who sabotaged Boney's image, to the point where Napoleon kept sending notes to the British government to censor Gillray.  The only thing we know about those notes is what they were used for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plumb-pudding_in_danger    Thank God for press gangs.

Billy takes time to carve his name on a 300 year old tree.  Silly rabbit!

John can't enjoy a day in the park because he doesn't see the park, just it's shadow.  He lives in the borderlands between Earth and Hell, sometimes referred to as 'The Balance'.  As a child this ruined his life.  It's not fair, but God doesn't play fair, he plays for keeps .  John is a highly flawed individual, but needed to counter the workings of Hell.  Everyone who befriends John gets dead, usually horribly.  That this happens for the best of reasons is not much comfort to the newly deceased, since they've been seized by the damned and are being held in extreme degradation and torment.  Don't think for a second the only way to get to Hell is by your own volition, not at all.  Just because John does God's work will not save his soul.   Who cares about a match after it burns out? Tim Bradstreet, Vertigo Comics. https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2024/05/just-another-day-for-john.html

  Here we see two lives connected by a strip of leather, and neither is happy with the arrangement.  Flamma may be a general, but he is also a rabbit and prefers solid ground.

     John Constantine deals with a high ranking demon who wants his soul but will settle for his head.  Fuck me , John thinks, I can't even get decently ploughed without Lucifer and his bumboys harshing my buzz. Wankers. Hellblazer Comics, Vertigo.  John can rise to the occasion from time to time.  https://misterscribbles.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-hellblazer.html

Th' infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile, Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the Most High, If he opposed, and with ambitious aim Against the throne and monarchy of God, Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud, With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion, down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. John Milton, Paradise Lost. 1667.  On the Index Librorum Prohibitorum until 1940.  Awesome artwork by Terrence Lindall , Heavy Metal Magazine, January 1980.   https://thefugitivesaint.tumblr.com/post/162868859283/terrance-lindall-paradise-lost-heavy-metal

  Tough Love. John Wagner, story.  Bill Willsher, art.  2016.